Yogesh Chander Deveshwar (4 February 1947 – 11 May 2019) was an Indian businessman. He was the chairman of

ITC Limited ITC Limited is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered in Kolkata. ITC has a diversified presence across industries such as FMCG, hotels, software, packaging, paperboards, specialty papers and agribusiness. The company has 13 businesses in ...

. He was the longest-serving CEO of any Indian company.

Early life

Yogesh Chander Deveshwar was born on 4 February 1947 in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. He received a bachelor's degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

from the

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi is a public institute of technology located in New Delhi, India. It is one of the 23 IITs created to be Centres of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering and technolo ...

in 1968. He later attended the six-week Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Career

Deveshwar joined

in 1968. He was appointed a main board director in 1984 and became the CEO and chairman in January 1996.Gupta, Indrajit & Surendar, T (2010)
Remaking Indian Tobacco Co.
, Forbes.com, 30 June 2010, retrieved 31 July 2011 Deveshwar was due to step down as head of ITC in 2010. He was a director on the central board of the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible f ...

, a member of the National Foundation for Corporate Governance, and a member of the governing body of the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Deveshwar was India's longest-serving CEO at the time of his death, and earned nearly triple the second-highest salary in his company. In 2011, it was reported that his salary was 26 lakh (2.6 million)

rupees Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...

per month. In 2013, he was listed as the best performing CEO in India by

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...

and seventh in the world. He served as the president of the Confederation of Indian Industry in 2005-06. In 2011, Deveshwar received the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

, India's third-highest civilian award.

Death

Deveshwar died on 11 May 2019, and although the immediate cause of death was not announced, it was known that he had been diagnosed with cancer a few years before.

References

External links

How Yogi Deveshwar changed ITC

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deveshwar, Yogesh Chander 1947 births 2019 deaths Indian chief executives IIT Delhi alumni Indian hoteliers Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in trade and industry Deaths from cancer in India Reserve Bank of India ITC Limited